Leading the charge: Can Britain develop a global advantage in ultra-low emission vehicles?

Tightened international standards for vehicle emissions have spurred the growth of the global market for ultra-low-emission vehicles (ULEVs) and the development of new technologies such as hybrid and pure electric vehicles.

In order to develop the UK's comparative advantage in the expanding international ULEV market, the government and industry must take unprecedented concerted action. This should focus on three areas of industrial policy:

• Ensuring that domestic firms in the automotive supply chain have access to the finance that they need.
• Providing greater public investment for the application and commercialisation of innovation.
• Adopting new strategies in higher education, immigration and apprenticeship policy to ensure that the supply of engineers keeps pace with demand from the automotive industry.

However, this comparative advantage can only be maintained by the development of a vibrant domestic ULEV market. To achieve this, action is required in several areas:

• Purchase incentives currently provided by the government should be more actively promoted, and guaranteed for longer periods to give greater certainty to buyers.
• Current usage incentives such as free parking spaces should be expanded, and other incentives such as free use of toll roads for ULEVs considered. A single 'green badge' scheme should be introduced to make it easier to identify qualifying vehicles.
• As a major procurer of vehicles, government should do more to drive demand for ULEVs by phasing in more stringent emission standards to the government buying standards for transport.
• Government should ensure that all ULEV buyers have access to safe charging point infrastructure for home, public, and private business use.
• New rapid charging stations should be placed at locally-identified strategic locations.
• Efforts to decarbonise the electricity system should be strengthened to ensure that drivers are not switching from dirty petrol-fuelled cars to dirty electricity-powered cars.
• The electricity network should be upgraded to meet additional demand from ULEVs.